WASHINGTON — A panel of business executives sat in front of lawmakers last month and touted the things they had done to make it easier to be a woman at their companies — among them, breastfeeding rooms, maternity leave and equal pay. The issues were ones generally talked about by Democrats, but this time it was a group of Republicans who had put on the event.

“Women have made great strides and have achieved so much in this country, but the fact remains that so many women and girls still face barriers to achieving their full potential,” Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally, who chairs the Women in the 21st Century Workforce working group, said as she kicked off the hearing in late March. “Many women today are struggling to balance the competing demands from their workplace and their families. They are expected to do it all, and they are exhausted.”

McSally — a retired Air Force colonel and the first female fighter pilot to fly a combat mission — came up with the idea for the group after she joined Congress in 2014 and saw a lack of conversation about women’s issues from members of her own party.

“What I was noticing was you had Democrats talking about equal pay, and in some cases I now know taking some of the statistics and exaggerating it and taking it a little bit out of context … And then on the Republican side, you either had nothing being said … or you would have people kind of pulling out charts and graphs and explaining how a lot of the pay gap is not discrimination,” McSally told USA TODAY in an interview in her Washington, D.C., office last week. “I don’t align myself with (Democrats) and I think we need to address this issue on our side because I care deeply about it and I felt like, why are we not in this space?”

McSally’s working group, which includes more than two dozen House members from various factions of the Republican Party, aims to understand women’s issues — such as equal pay and family leave —and eventually find solutions. The GOP tends to oppose government regulation, and McSally is open to solutions from the private sector.

“Not everything is going to take an act of Congress to fix. And we don’t think the federal government should be involved in many of these things, perhaps,” she told House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., during a Facebook Live conversation in October. But she's also not ruling out legislation, adding that if there are solutions that require bills, “we can promise that we’re going to be moving them forward.”

"This is how we try to tackle problems here in the House Republican Conference," Ryan said at the time.

"As mothers, wives, and professional women, we have a unique perspective to develop solutions to these important issues," Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Calif., told USA TODAY. Walters, who is working with McSally on the task force, said, "We have begun laying the framework for meaningful reform with respect to compensable leave and flexible work schedules that will benefit women, whether they are juggling child care, a busy career, or any other of life’s responsibilities."

Women make up a far smaller proportion of Congress than the U.S. population. In 2017, just 19% of lawmakers were women. But the number of Republican women in Congress is even smaller. Out of 104 total women in both the House and Senate, only 26 are Republicans.

“It’s an example of why its important to have women's voices … because they will see the world through a different lens,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“I think the women’s vote is a huge issue for the Republican Party, still,” Walsh said. “I think that the party still is trying to figure out — how does it talk to women, how does it message to women? Health issues, pay equity issues, family leave issues — these are all issues that are all really important. What it seems like what she’s trying to do is reach out and talk about some of these issues.”

McSally said she’s been in touch with Ivanka Trump, who has vowed to help her father, President Trump, take on equal pay and affordable child care.

Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald Trump, speaks during the 2016 Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.(Photo11: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)

“He will fight for equal pay for equal work, and I will fight for this, too, right alongside of him,” Trump’s oldest daughter said during the Republican National Convention last summer. Trump, so far, has not been clear on how exactly he will accomplish these things.

“I appreciate that she’s got a passion for this issue and you know some of her ideas are ones that aren’t traditionally Republican, which I’m OK with, right? I think we’ve gotta break the mold here and see where we can find some common ground,” McSally said.

McSally holds former Democrat congresswoman Gabby Gifford’s seat in the House. She beat former Democratic congressman Ron Barber — a Giffords staffer wounded during the 2011 shooting in which Giffords was also shot — by a mere 167 votes in 2014. Her constituency demands that she work with her colleagues across the aisle, but Arizona also voted for Trump, putting McSally in a unique spot.

As negotiations for the Obamacare repeal and replace bill came down to the wire last month, McSally called Ryan and offered a solution she thought would keep moderates from jumping off over concessions made to conservatives.

Hardline conservatives had convinced the White House and House leadership to eliminate "essential health benefits," a requirement that insurance policies cover certain things like maternity care, mental health and substance abuse. Conservatives believed those regulations were costing consumers extra and convinced the White House and House leadership to eliminate that requirement in the repeal bill.

“I called Speaker Ryan that night and said, 'Look, this is a nonstarter for some people that are like-minded,' ” McSally said referring to Republican moderates and her allies in the moderate Tuesday Group, of which she is a member. “When we’re talking about some of these things like maternity care, substance abuse, mental health, you know we’ve gotta make sure that those resources are there for the people in our community. This can’t just be a pay-as-you-go.”

McSally said she proposed to leave in place a 0.9% Medicare tax on high-income earners, in order to create a pool of resources that could be directed at maternity care, substance abuse and mental health.

“His response was, ‘That’s a constructive idea,' ” McSally said. The next day, it was added to the legislation.

“So that was a positive outcome that I literally personally came up with and negotiated in order to address concerns of myself and some others,” she continued. Ryan’s office confirmed the order of events. The full bill was ultimately pulled after it became clear there still wasn’t enough support for the legislation to pass the House. On Tuesday night, McSally was one of a handful of Republicans who met with the vice president and other top White House aides to see whether they could bring back a revised version of the health care bill, but those talks ended with no agreement.

McSally is also one of just four female veterans in Congress — two Democrats and two Republicans — and she believes she deserves a seat at the table on women’s issues.

“I’m in, I think, a unique position where I’ve been in a nontraditional career, I’ve broken through barriers myself,” McSally said, referring to when she sued the secretary of Defense to overturn the military requirement that women serving in the Middle East wear burqas. She argued it violated the Constitution because it discriminated against women. She ultimately won the suit.

“The leadership realized that there’s certainly value for my voice and my passion and my leadership on issues like this, as we’re trying to solve some of these problems,” she added.